Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2

I perfectly agree with the doctrine laid down by Sokrates in the Protagoras, that pain or suffering is the End to be avoided or lessened as far as possible — and pleasure or happiness the End to be pursued as far as attainable — by intelligent forethought and comparison: that there is no other intelligible standard of reference, for application of the terms Good and Evil, except the tendency to produce happiness or misery: and that if this standard be rejected, ethical debate loses all standard for rational discussion, and becomes only an enunciation of the different sentiments, authoritative and self-justifying, prevalent in each community. But the End just mentioned is highly complex, and care must be taken to conceive it in its full comprehension. Herein I conceive the argument of Sokrates (in the Protagoras) to be incomplete. It carries attention only to a part of the truth, keeping out of sight, though not excluding, the remainder. It considers each man as an individual, determining good or evil for himself by calculating his own pleasures and pains: as a prudent, temperate, and courageous agent, but neither as just nor beneficent. It omits to take account of him as a member of a society, composed of many others akin or co-ordinate with himself.

Now it is the purpose of an ethical or political reasoner (such as Plato both professes to be and really is) to study the means of happiness, not simply for the agent himself, but for that agent together with others around him — for the members of the community generally.145 The Platonic Sokrates says this himself in the Republic: and accordingly, he there treats of other points which are not touched upon by Sokrates in the Protagoras. He proclaims that the happiness of each citizen must be sought only by means consistent with the security, and to a certain extent with the happiness, of others: he provides as far as practicable that all shall derive their pleasures and pains from the same causes: common pleasures, and common pains, to all.146 The doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras requires to be enlarged so as to comprehend these other important elements. Since the conduct of every agent affects the happiness of others, he must be called upon to take account of its consequences under both aspects, especially where it goes to inflict hurt or privation upon others. Good and evil depend upon that scientific computation and comparison of pleasures and pains which Sokrates in the Protagoras prescribes: but the computation must include, to a certain extent, the pleasures and pains (security and rightful expectations) of others besides the agent himself, implicated in the consequences of his acts.147

As to this point, we shall find the Platonic Sokrates not always correct, nor even consistent with himself. This will appear especially when we come to see the account which he gives of Justice in the Republic. In that branch of the Ethical End, a direct regard to the security of others comes into the foreground. For in an act of injustice, the prominent characteristic is that of harm, done to others — though that is not the whole, since the security of the agent himself is implicated with that of others in the general fulfilment of these obligations. It is this primary regard to others, and secondary regard to self, implicated in one complex feeling — which distinguishes justice from prudence. The Platonic Sokrates in the Republic (though his language is not always clear) does not admit this; but considers justice as a branch of prudence, necessary to ensure the happiness of the individual agent himself.

Now in the Protagoras, what the Platonic Sokrates dwells upon (in the argument which I have been considering) is prudence, temperance, courage: little or nothing is said about justice: there was therefore the less necessity for insisting on that prominent reference to the security of others (besides the agent himself) which justice involves. If, however, we turn back to the earlier part of the dialogue, to the speech delivered by Protagoras, we see justice brought into the foreground. It is not indeed handled analytically (which is not the manner of that Sophist), nor is it resolved into regard to pleasure and pain, happiness and misery: but it is announced as a social sentiment indispensably and reciprocally necessary from every man towards every other (δίκη — αἰδὼς), distinguishable from those endowments which supply the wants and multiply the comforts of the individual himself. The very existence of the social union requires, that each man should feel a sentiment of duties on his part towards others, and duties on their parts towards him: or (in other words) of rights on his part to have his interests considered by others, and rights on their parts to have their interests considered by him. Unless this sentiment of reciprocity — reciprocal duty and right — exist in the bosom of each individual citizen, or at least in the large majority — no social union could subsist.

There are doubtless different degrees of the sentiment: moreover the rights and duties may be apportioned better or worse, more or less fairly, among the individuals of a society; thus rendering the society more or less estimable and comfortable. But without a certain minimum of the sentiment in each individual bosom, even the worst constituted society could not hold together. And it is this sentiment of reciprocity which Protagoras (in the dialogue before us) is introduced as postulating in his declaration, that justice and the sense of shame (unlike to professional aptitudes) must be distributed universally and without exception among all the members of a community. Each man must feel them, in his conduct towards others: each man must also be able to reckon that others will feel the like, in their behaviour towards him.148

If we thus compare the Ethical End, as implied, though not explicitly laid down, by Protagoras in the earlier part of the dialogue, — and as laid down by Sokrates in the later part — we shall see that while Sokrates restricts it to a true comparative estimate of the pains and pleasures of the agent himself, Protagoras enlarges it so as to include a direct reference to those of others also, coupled with an expectation of the like reference on the part of others.149 Sokrates is satisfied with requiring from each person calculating prudence for his own pleasures and pains: while Protagoras proclaims that after this attribute had been obtained by man, and individual wants supplied, still there was a farther element necessary in the calculation — the social sentiment or reciprocity of regard implanted in every one’s bosom: without this the human race would have perished. Prudence and skill will suffice for an isolated existence; but if men are to live and act in social communion, the services as well as the requirements of each man must be shaped, in a certain measure, with a direct view to the security of others as well as to his own.

In my judgment, the Ethical End, exclusively self-regarding, here laid down by Sokrates, is too narrow. And if we turn to other Platonic dialogues, we shall find Sokrates still represented as proclaiming a self-regarding Ethical End, though not the same as what we read in the Protagoras. In the Gorgias, Republic, Phædon, &c., we shall find him discountenancing the calculation (recommended in the Protagoras) of pleasures and pains against each other, as greater, more certain, durable, &c., and insisting that all shall be estimated according as they bear on the general condition or health of the mind, which he assimilates to the general condition or health of the body. The health of the body, considered as an End to be pursued, is essentially self-regarding: so also is the health of the mind. I shall touch upon this farther when I consider the above-mentioned dialogues: at present, I only remark that they agree with the Sokrates of the Protagoras in assuming a self-regarding Ethical End, though they do not agree with him in describing what that End should be.

The application which Sokrates makes (in the Protagoras) of his own assumed Ethical End to the explanation of courage, is certainly confused and unsatisfactory. And indeed, we may farther remark that the general result at which Plato seems to be aiming in this dialogue, viz.: That all the different virtues are at the bottom one and the same, and that he who possesses one of them must also possess the remainder — cannot be made out even upon his own assumptions. Though it be true that all the virtues depend upon correct calculation, yet as each of them applies to a different set of circumstances and different disturbing and misleading causes, the same man who calculates well under one set of circumstances, may calculate badly under others. The position laid down by Protagoras, that men are often courageous but unjust — just, but not wise — is noway refuted by Plato. Nor is it even inconsistent with Plato’s own theory, though he seems to think it so.

Some of the Platonic commentators maintain,150 that the doctrine here explicitly laid down and illustrated by Sokrates, viz.: the essential identity of the pleasurable with the good, of the painful with the evil — is to be regarded as not serious, but as taken up in jest for the purpose of mocking and humiliating Protagoras. Such an hypothesis appears to me untenable; contradicted by the whole tenor of the dialogue. Throughout all the Platonic compositions, there is nowhere to be found any train of argument more direct, more serious, and more elaborate, than that by which Sokrates here proves the identity of good with pleasure, of pain with evil (p. 351 to end). Protagoras begins by denying it, and is only compelled to accept the conclusion against his own will, by the series of questions which he cannot otherwise answer.151 Sokrates admits that the bulk of mankind are also opposed to it: but he establishes it with an ingenuity which is pronounced to be triumphant by all the hearers around.152 The commentators are at liberty to impeach the reasoning as unsound; but to set it aside as mere banter and mockery, is preposterous. Assume it even to be intended as mockery — assume that Sokrates is mystifying the hearers, by a string of delusive queries, to make out a thesis which he knows to be untrue and silly — how can the mockery fall upon Protagoras, who denies the thesis from the beginning?153 The irony, if it were irony, would be misplaced and absurd.

The commentators resort to this hypothesis, partly because the doctrine in question is one which they disapprove — partly because doctrines inconsistent with it are maintained in other Platonic dialogues. These are the same two reasons upon which, in other cases, various dialogues have been rejected as not genuine works of Plato. The first of the two reasons is plainly irrelevant: we must accept what Plato gives us, whether we assent to it or not. The second reason also, I think, proves little. The dialogues are distinct compositions, written each with its own circumstances and purpose: we have no right to require that they shall be all consistent with each other in doctrine, especially when we look to the long philosophical career of Plato. To suppose that the elaborate reasoning of Sokrates in the latter portion of the Protagoras is mere irony, intended to mystify both Protagoras himself and all the by-standers, who accept it as earnest and convincing — appears to me far less reasonable than the admission, that the dialectic pleading ascribed to Sokrates in one dialogue is inconsistent with that assigned to him in another.

Though there is every mark of seriousness, and no mark of irony, in this reasoning of Sokrates, yet we must remember that he does not profess to leave the subject settled at the close of the dialogue. On the contrary, he declares himself to be in a state of puzzle and perplexity. The question, proposed at the outset, Whether virtue is teachable? remains undecided.